EDITOR’S NOTE

Malaise Musings

REMEMBER HOW LAST YEAR AROUND THIS TIME WE WERE THINKING, “WELL THIS YEAR WAS A TOTAL dumpster fire. Next year has to be better, right?” Then 2021 comes around and — as Crystal Hot Sauce CEO Pepper Baumer noted on a podcast I recorded with him in October — essentially says, “Hold my beer.”

How do you top a global pandemic? You throw in a Category 4 hurricane.

It’s been a rough year to live in New Orleans, to say the least, which makes it no surprise that there’s been a good amount of talk around the city — even among regular cheerleaders like our mayor and Michael Hecht — about a general post-Ida malaise. I’ve definitely felt it. My family has lived here almost 11 years, and in that time I’ve definitely had some “bad New Orleans days,” like when I punctured a tire running over a pothole — not once, but twice in the same day; or the countless boil water advisories and times I’ve parked a car on a “neutral ground” to make sure it wasn’t flooded. These are all things I never experienced living in California, or Washington, or Colorado, or Nebraska, or Canada. However, I’ve also yet to wake up before dawn to shovel snow here (cursing up a storm and unable to feel my toes), or struggled to breathe while I evacuated from yet another wildfire, or spent three hours stuck in a traffic jam. Every place has its issues.

And when I look back (and isn’t the last month of the year a great time to look back?) my list of “things I never experienced before living in New Orleans” includes a lot more positives than negatives. We all know what those things are too — the food, the culture, the people — they’re what make this city unlike any other in the world, in a good way. The problem is the pandemic took away so many of these good things that make the problems worth dealing with.

But I have faith, enough to have just bought a house, that those good things are on their way back, and that this city will continue to grow and change in positive ways, like is evident in many of this year’s top stories.

A few years ago, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “New Orleans: We’re All Here Because We’re Not All There.” It made me laugh out loud. Maybe we are all just a bit crazy for staying here, but I’m OK with that. Life without some crazy is just the vanilla ice cream — no bread pudding or bananas foster.

No thanks.

Kimberley Singletary, Managing Editor

PublisherTodd Matherne

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